Yes, I’m back. This one came out of nowhere after I fell out of love with playing my Torquay United / Nottingham Forest save. We’ve got Torquay to the Championship before a poor start to the season saw us sacked. Then join Forest who were recently relegated to the Championship. We won the league and league cup that year before going on to win a European Conference Cup before jumping ship before being pushed!
I left that save as needed some time away from it and found this one! I wasn’t sure I’d even be writing again before FM24 but here we go. The 1992/93 season database!!!
I was approached last season by Patrick Viera and his agent who wanted to explore his options at the end of his contract. I asked him to stay but he was adamant he was leaving which would be in a year and a half. In the end, I wanted to cash in on him so he left for £26.5m (£39m) during the summer which isn’t bad!
We had some close calls. I didn’t realise that both Brazilian players Roberto Carlos and Rivaldo has release clauses that were both met in this transfer window. We had to increase their wages a lot to keep them but both agreed to a new contract so we kept them. Phew!
We also sold Russian ‘keeper Ruslan Nigmatullian to Crystal Palace for £32m rising to £37m. He wasn’t progressing enough and would struggle to challenge 1st choice ‘keeper Massimo Taibi. I did offer Víctor Baía a contract as he was out of one but he chose to stay at Porto.
This, and Viera raised almost £60 million so we spent it on quality. I wanted Gus Puyet to come but he chose Manchester City. So instead we got Enzo Scifo from Torino on a free transfer due to being out of contract. An excellent bit of business but big time on the wages. He’s also on a match highest earner clause so watch me forget that one next year!
Next up is Nolberto Solano from Peruvian side Crystal. And at £750k, he looks to be an absolute bargain! He’ll be used as a back up right winger who will probably inherit the position when he’s a bit older.
Next is Zeljko Kalac who came on a free transfer after leaving Melbourne Victory. He’s 22 years old and there’s a chance he’ll develop into a decent ‘keeper. But he’ll be an emergency back up to Taibi. He’s cheap so if it doesn’t work out, no bother.
Finally, the big transfer of the window, Paolo Negro from Manchester United for £40 million. I looked at a lot of DRs and this guy was the only one at a semi-decent price. I paid for him and he’s now ours. If he does well, his value will increase to around £60 million, I think.
The opening fixture of this season was Leeds. The squad was free from injuries and pre-season had gone well winning all games on our American tour. We also beat Oldham and Real Sociedad but did lose to Arsenal 3-1.
This optimism carried into the opening game where we won 6-0 against Leeds. This was followed up with a 5-2 victory over Nottingham Forrest before a narrow 0-1 loss to Liverpool.
The first month was completed with a 3-0 victory over Crystal Palace. And it was around this time we found out our Champions League opponents. We had some easier ties against teams like Galatasaray and Maccabi Tel-Aviv but would be tested against Real Madrid again and their neighbour, Atlético Madrid. We’d also have trip to Italy to face Fiorentina and AC Milan.
September saw us face Manchester United in the third round of the League Cup. They’ve got to be the strongest team in the world at this point and have won the last two Premier League. We’ve not got a great record against them in the last few years and lost that match 3-0 causing some unrest in the camp at not progressing far enough in the competition.
But this improved with wins against Galatasaray and Frankfurt in the Champions League. We lost to Real Madrid thanks to and 86th and 87th minute goals from Gary Speed and Luis Enrique. But the game that followed was one of the most crazy games I’ve ever been a part of!
Ac Milan away saw us go 2-0 up before Milan pulled a goal back. We scored next twice to make the score 4-1. But Milan came back at us and scored in the 83rd, 90th, 92nd and 93rd minute.
It was utter madness and embarrassment at losing from being 4-1 up. Let’s just say water bottles were thrown. Extra training sessions took place the following day to tighten up the defence, especially when protecting a lead!
The new year came and went with Slaven Bilic and Jiri Nemec being sold. They were loaned back to us for the remainder of the season which meant we didn’t need to replace them until the summer. But this did cause a strange thing to happen to the Champions League registered player. All players were unregistered meaning we Fiorentina with grey players and lost 0-9.
We’d already qualified but in the next round we were drawn against Manchester United for a second time in knockout competitions this season. We lost the tie 0-5 and 1-6 unsurprisingly without any players. I was so annoyed.
But by the end of January we had done just enough to be ahead of Manchester United heading into the final part of the season. It would be close!
Heading into the final few months we drew Manchester United again in the fifth round of the FA Cup. We lost that one 4-5 despite going ahead early. They’re turning into a real nuisance, actually.
But looking at the league we continued to do well and with 9 games remaining we find ourselves on 69 points, the same as Manchester United.
The final few months saw us win all game except a surprise draw with Norwich and a narrow loss to Tottenham.
This didn’t matter to United who went on a similar rund and as we found ouurselves with one game to play against Arsenal of the season, we were a point ahead of United but they had an extra game to play. They won that match and we went into the final game of the season needing a win and a few goals to overturn a goal difference, should that be required.
We headed into the game against Arsenal needing a win and that’s what we did. We thrashed them 4-0 away from home but unfortunately, United were just too strong and beat already relegated Everton 5-1 meaning we finish behind them to take second place.
If we’ve just won one more game, we’d have done it! Some strengthen to certain positions needed over the summer to try and match Manchester United and their squad with the class of ’92 improving and coming through into the first team.
It just shows how well Blackburn did in 1994 to win the league! We’ve had Shearer and Rivaldo scoring over 70 goals between them and Yeboah also finding the net comfortably! Next season might be a make or break one and with money in the bank, let’s go and spend it! More big signings incoming!
My FM Story 
Leave a comment